


Leverage, Season 5, Episode 10, The Frame Up Job

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Leverage
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s05e10 The Frame Up Job, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 05, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24737773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.
Kudos: 4





	Leverage, Season 5, Episode 10, The Frame Up Job

It turns out: I’m extremely meh on Nate/Sophie without the poly trio, and I will be rambling about Sterling a fair amount.

Open to Nate and Sophie in the night-time trying to outrun bullets near a pool. She makes it clear she wishes he’d just gone to a movie instead of insisting on coming with her.

He counters, if he had, she’d be in jail, and she counters his counter with: Jail would be better than possible imminent death.

For all I love The Run Down Job, I don’t believe calls weren’t, at least, attempted to be made in these two episodes. Though, I do buy it a little more here than I do in TRDJ. So, this episode has that to it’s credit, at least.

Going into flashback mode, Parker did text them, but it’s debatable if she mentioned the whole ‘prevented a pandemic about eight years before the world won’t be so lucky and possibly became a proper throuple’ thing or not.

Nate would like to spend this free time having sex, but Sophie has a thing she tries to discourage him from going with her to by tempting him with a ticket to a noir murder mystery film marathon.

Next, Sophie is at an auction for a dead man’s artwork, and in something I doubt surprises anyone, Nate has shown up. During all this, the dead man’s son is introduced, and I’m impressed by the actor, Ryan McCluskey, playing him.

Sophie’s interested in a painting no one has ever seen, but she insists she’s not here to steal it.

Cue everyone discovering it’s been stolen.

Nate tries to her extract her, and I do find the hand-holding they do during this episode to be cute.

“Hello, Nate.”

Sterling and his ducklings have shown up.

So, Sterling has four agents who pop up throughout the episode. They’re all attractive women, but there’s nothing sexualised about them. There’s never any playing of ‘look at Sterling getting to enjoy the perks of having hot women serving under him’ or an implication he’s sexually/romantic interested in any of them or that any of them has any such interest in him.

If four actors were playing the role instead, literally nothing would need to be changed, including wardrobe (with the only possible exception being of certain undergarments), and I find it nice to see these women in such a gender unimportant role. Even when Sterling addresses them, though I wouldn’t object to the term ‘ladies’, he only uses, “agents”.

In all technicality, it could be argued the four are unnecessary. Sterling could say, ‘I make one phone call, and people will come arrest you two,’ and Nate, Sophie, and the audience would take him seriously. However, on a character level, I view this as him going, ‘Hey, Nate, you know those ducklings you’ve had following you around for about five years? Well, I have my own ducklings now!’

I don’t know if Leverage specifically set to cast four women or if this just ended up happening, but whichever, good on you, show.

Nate, Sophie, Sterling, and two ducklings go to a room to talk in private, and there’s a funny bit where Nate and Sophie seem serious in agreeing they should have sent Sterling a card when he was put in charge of his own division at Interpol.

Sophie and Nate establish, obviously, they don’t have the painting on them. Sophie insists she isn’t behind it being missing, and they declare they’ll help him find out who did steal it.

Alternatively: he will have one of the ducklings handcuff them together, and then, he will take both ducklings with him and leave them in an unguarded room, because, he has to put on a show of rejecting this proposal but make it easy enough for them to make good on helping him.

After they’re left alone, they immediately get out of the handcuffs, though, there’s an implication Sterling will not be getting these handcuffs back due to an interest by the couple in using them for sexytimes later.

As long as this doesn’t come out of the duckling’s paycheque, I have no objections.

Starting the investigation, Nate and Sophie tell one person that, along with Sterling, they’re also Interpol. Heh.

Then, talking about his lack of trust and her lying, they discover the code to the vault had been changed. This is followed by them finding out the vault was entered six times on the day the man died.

“It’s murder,” they both realise.

Next, they find Sterling, and he’s completely unsurprised they’re running about. There’s an interesting line, “Is this an escape, because, if it is, you’re very bad at it.”

I should have made this clearer in my other reviews, and I might try to edit them someday so that it is, but there are things I’ll argue are intended as canon, and then, there are things that I think make the most sense given what the narrative has provided. I have no doubt many of the latter were not intended by anyone involved in the show.

I’ll likely talk much more about this in The Long Goodbye Job, but I believe: 1. Sterling is in love with Nate, and 2. Sterling and Sophie have worked together behind Team Leverage’s back more than once.

Here, there’s a canonical interpretation to be made Sterling doesn’t believe Sophie stole the painting and isn’t as opposed to their help as he wants certain people to believe.

A less canonical interpretation is this is him asking Sophie, ‘You and Nate aren’t going to take the option of escape I made available?’

Nate and Sophie lay out the method of death: Someone emptied many gel-filled pills into the man’s drink.

Outside, they discover the pills in something due to the person tossing them down the sink.

I’m not sure how much I buy this, but this could be down to the fact I’ve always been taught that anything potentially poisonous should be flushed down the toilet as opposed to dumped in the sink. Some things aren’t flushable, of course, but whenever I’ve accidentally dropped medicine on the floor, it’s been picked up to be flushed as opposed to thrown in the trash or washed down the sink.

They give him the vault evidence, and when Sophie walks away, Nate and Sterling break down the suspect list. Sterling gives Nate an hour, and Nate’s response is, “I don’t need an hour, I’ve got a Sophie.” Aw.

Sterling goes to talk to Sophie, and she asks if he really needs to be here.

“You’re not innocent, _yet_ ,” he says.

Sophie talks to the curator, and elsewhere, Nate listens on his phone to the conversation, and he has a flashback reconstructions of what might have happened. Next, the dead man’s daughter is talked to, and then, the drunk ex-wife. During all this, Sophie ribs at Sterling.

When they talk to the lawyer again, she addresses Sterling as “Agent Smith”, but given it was established the lawyer and Sterling talked earlier, it’s unlikely the lawyer wouldn’t know his name.

He says the son was reinstated into the will but refused his inheritance.

Nate goes to talk to said son, and the character of the son is a good actor. He fools Nate here with his ‘repentant addict just wanted to reconnect with his father but couldn’t figure out how to properly do it before his father died’ act.

The not-poly trio meet up to discuss everything.

Hardison is in love with both Parker and Eliot, they’re both in love with him, and they both love one another deeply. Sharing him comes naturally to them. Here, Sophie and Sterling both love Nate, but Nate only loves Sophie, and Sophie and Sterling don’t love one another at all.

Nate and Sophie start flirting, and Sterling is all, ‘Nope!’

In the manservant’s room, they find a stolen painting hidden. He’s arrested, and some ducklings take the painting to the showing room. It’s unveiled, and based on Sophie’s reaction, it’s not the missing one. However, the curator says it is.

Clearly suspicious, Sterling nevertheless makes as if he buys this, and when he leaves, Sophie tells Nate about the painting not being the missing one.

Going outside, they talk. She won’t reveal how she knows it’s a fake since, supposedly, no one has ever seen the painting but the artist, and she wants to steal both this recovered painting and another painting in order to prove the recovered one is a fake.

Despite his objections, Nate eventually agrees he will be a supportive boyfriend, and they kiss.

Nate goes to where Sterling is giving one of the ducklings instructions on what to do with the painting, and Sterling is immediately on-guard. Nate makes Sterling doubt the case, and ducklings are ordered to take the painting back to the viewing room.

Outside, using the alias she used in The Rashomon Job, Sophie tries to get a painting handed over to her.

One thing I don’t get is the multiple references to how tight her dress supposedly is. I wouldn’t say it’s super form-fitting. Here, however, regardless of whether it’s tight or not, she’s carrying a clutch bag, yet, she uses her dress as an excuse for not carrying ID. A driving license, passport, or non-driver identification card would fit in her clutch bag.

She manages to get the painting.

Over in the manservant’s room, two ducklings are conducting a search whilst Nate and Sterling basically just annoy one another. Ordering Nate to leave, Sterling sends one of the ducklings to follow him.

Nate and Sophie manage to steal the boxed painting, and the duckling ordered to follow Nate arrives seconds after it’s replaced with a different one.

Somehow, they get away from all ducklings, and in the barn, Sophie and Nate test the paintings. Sophie is emotional over the fact neither is a fake, and Nate suggests that, instead, they’re both fake. He thinks the whole collection might be fake.

Next, they go to Sterling, and two ducklings stand in the background.

“Arrest them both.”

The ducklings move to comply, but Sophie asks, “On what charge?”

“Theft.”

“We’ve brought you back the paintings,” Nate says.

“Obstructing an investigation.”

“We’re helping you with your investigation,” Sophie says.

“Being annoying and crazy.”

Little issue of, they point out: That’s not a crime.

“I don’t care!” Calming down, Sterling talks through things with them.

They go to the viewing room, and Sterling asks, ‘Hey, anyone here been replacing the paintings with forgeries?’

The curator runs, and Sterling is in so much disbelief. “I didn’t think that would work!”

They find her dead in the pool from a head injury.

After her body is taken away, Sterling talks to his assembled ducklings about what he believes is her accidental death. Going over to Nate and Sophie, he’s smug, and I wonder if, “Be seeing you,” is something of a catchphrase for Shephard’s characters. He says it here on Leverage and Supernatural both.

They leave, and at headquarters, they have a relationship talk.

Hutton and Bellman have good chemistry, but the tension-filled dance between Nate and Sophie was often annoying, and I’m just not that invested in their relationship. There are times they make a good comedic duo, but when I’m supposed to be invested in the relationship beyond that, I’m often not.

They kiss, Sophie goes to get a change of clothes, and realising something, Nate just leaves.

Dude, send a text to your girlfriend, at least.

At the house, it’s revealed the son is the murderer. He and the curator were replacing the paintings with forgeries until his father got suspicious. He killed his father, and then, when the curator was running, he killed her via a brick to the head.

Sophie appears, and she takes down the son with a potted plant to the head. She starts yelling at Nate, but since the potted plant didn’t kill the son, Nate is more focused on getting them out than anything else.

Now, we’re back to the pre-credit scene. Getting Sophie to run, Nate disarms the son, handcuffs him to a crate, and pushes the crate into the pool.

In the early morning, ducklings are putting the son in a van, and Sterling asks if there’s anyone else he should arrest for the same crime, “Or is three our lucky number?”

Not in your case, no.

Getting in the passenger side of the van, Sterling offers, “You ever want to do this again, call me. I’m hiring. And you can bring the art thief.”

A duckling drives the van away.

I wish Sterling had gotten ducklings sooner.

Nate and Sophie go inside, and they find the real painting. Enough is shown to make it clear it’s of a younger, more naked Sophie.

Carrying the painting, Nate says, “I think you look better now.”

Wrapped around his arm, Sophie declares him quite the charmer.

Fin.


End file.
